This project-based course is three courses rolled into one. First, it delves into the history of the 1970s Bay Area, which was an unusually fertile cultural seedbed: so many features of contemporary life, from the cappuccinos we drink to the laptop computers we use to write and think, were incubated in it. The region was ground-zero for the technological utopianism represented by the Whole Earth Catalog and the computer clubs that produced the first desktop computer; ground-zero for the revolution in cooking known as “California cuisine”; ground-zero for new forms of spiritual practice and religious organization; ground-zero for the spread of women’s liberation, black liberation and gay liberation, and for the evolution of “movement cultures” that stood behind such new cultural forms as disco, punk, and ‘alternative comix’; and much more.

Second, the course offers students an introduction to the practice of archival research. The course will be meeting at the Bancroft Library, and students will work in collaboration with one another to explore specific archives at the Bancroft, such as the Chez Panisse Collection and the Disability Rights and Defense Fund Collection. Students will approach these collections with the open eyes of historians looking at fresh documents, and with the goal of plumbing these documents for the insights and stories that they yield.

Third, the course will give students the experience of creating a digital history project of their own. Students will work towards creating both a digital exhibition and a multi-media essay that springs out of the primary research they do. As a point of reference, students might look at Prof. Saul’s “Richard Pryor’s Peoria” at http://www.becomingrichardpryor.com or the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project at http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/.

No experience with digital humanities is required for this course, but students should be ready to engage with a course that is more collaborative and project-oriented than is customary in humanities seminars.

History 121 B The American Revolution

TTh 11-12:30

M. Peterson

121 Haas Pavilion

4 Units

Class Number: 32106

Section 101 – T 4-5, 130 Dwinelle
Section 102 – T 5-6, 130 Dwinelle

This course will explore the history of eastern North America and the West Indies in the second half of the 18th century, in order to determine what was "revolutionary" about this history, as well as what was not. We will, of course, examine the causes and consequences of the rebellion staged by thirteen of Britain's American colonies in the 1770s, including the makeshift construction of the United States, but we will also investigate the broader Atlantic context in which these events occurred, and consider their reverberations for places and peoples that did not voluntarily join the new United States.

History 122 AC Antebellum America: The Advent of Mass Society

TTh 3:30-5

D. Henkin

390 Hearst Mining

4 Units

Class Number: 32107

The Civil War is commonly regarded as the second American Revolution, the grand rupture after which a new modern nation came into being. But many of the institutions, ideologies, and practices that make up modern society and culture in the United States emerged more gradually during the half-century that preceded the War. To understand the origins of such contemporary phenomena as the mass media, corporate capitalism, wage labor, the two-party system, family values, and racism, we need to trace their evolution in the nineteenth century. This course examines a little over half a century of life in the United States (roughly from 1800 until the secession of the South), focusing on everyday life, popular culture, race relations, westward expansion, urbanization, class formation, religious experience, gender roles, sexuality, print communication, and competing claims to wealth, power, and the good life. Assigned readings will consist largely of first-person narratives in which women and men of varied ethnic backgrounds and cultural identities try to make sense of their own experiences against the backdrop of major social change.

Theater 114 Performance Workshop - Performing the 1960s

MWF 10-12

P. Glazer

170 Zellerbach

4 Units

Class Number: 23811

This class will stage a selection of significant writings of the 1960s in the US, to better grasp that profound and influential decade. The class is based on the assumption that there are few better ways to understand a piece of writing than to embody it. We will read and perform every week – developing monologues, small scenes, and ensemble pieces from the literature – working up to a final presentation we will curate from the semester’s explorations. So many of the progressive social movements of the present moment - such as Black Lives Matter, Occupy, and LGBTQ rights, to name a few - have roots in the movement culture of the 60s. We will engage with notable fiction, non-fiction and poetry from the decade. Authors will include, among others: Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Truman Capote, Cesar Chavez, Joan Didion, Betty Friedan, Allen Ginsberg, Rodolfo Gonzales, Abbie Hoffman, Ken Kesey, Norman Mailer, Sylvia Plath, Luis Valdez, Kurt Vonnegut, Malcolm X. There is no audition required, and prior performance experience is not necessary.

University of California BerkeleyOffice of Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Studies, Undergraduate Division - College of Letters & Science